Mac OS X on x86 Hardware 2008–2024 Technical Archive
InfiniteMac OSx86 › OSx86 Core & 10.X › MBR disk dual boot messed up, SL and Vista
4,444 reads · 2010-05-20 – 2010-05-21
Dossier 10.X Core Retail DVD / USB

MBR disk dual boot messed up, SL and Vista

I've had Snow Leopard and Vista dual booting for awhile, but I messed it up yesterday. I went to edit Vista's BCD with the BCDEdit command-line tool, but I got an error. Google said I needed to to set my Windows partition as active so I…

Primary Author
@flackend Published 2010-05-20
Collection
OSx86 Core & 10.X
Archival Footprint
4,444 historical reads · 1 curated field notes (from 3 dispatches) · 2010-05-20 – 2010-05-21
Credited Voices (2)
@flackend (2)@srs5694

I've had Snow Leopard and Vista dual booting for awhile, but I messed it up yesterday. I went to edit Vista's BCD with the BCDEdit command-line tool, but I got an error. Google said I needed to to set my Windows partition as active so I used the Windows Disk Management tool. But when I restarted the computer PC EFI didn't load. So I used the Windows Disk Management tool to set my SL partition as active...hence my problem.

Now PC EFI loads in GUI mode (before it loaded in non-GUI) with two options: Windows and Windows NTFS. The first loads Vista and the second (presumably SL) loads a black screen with a blinking cursor.

If I use the Windows Disk Management tool to set the Windows partition as active, it goes straight to windows. I booted into the SL install disk and used fdisk to set the SL partition as active. But I get the PC EFI same as described before.

I also tried to 'Repair Disk' from the Disk Utility on the installation disk and I get an error saying it failed the file system validation (because it thinks it's NTFS but it's actually HFS+).

The disk is MBR.

Is there a way for me to fix my problem? A tool to repair the partition or partition map?

I have an extra partition if it would help to have another installation of OS X to work from.

I also posted this question at insanelymac ↗.

Author Updates & Technical Revisions

Follow-up dispatches by @flackend

Author Update #1 @flackend 2010-05-21

Fixed!

fdisk manual page (developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/fdisk.8.html)

Boot to OS X installation disk.
Boot to OS X installation disk.
Open Terminal.

# fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

-e Edit MBR interactively.
rdisk0 0 is the disk number. If you only have one hard drive 0 is most likely the correct number.

# print

Prints the disk partition map.
Note the number (#) of the partition to be changed.

# setpid 1

1 The partition number.

# AF

AF The ID for HFS+.

# write
# exit

Reboot.

Synthesized Community Field Notes

1 technical responses curated from 3 original dispatches

Field Note #1 @srs5694 2010-05-20

I'd try re-installing your boot loader, or installing another one (Chameleon, Boot Think, or maybe even GRUB 2).

Sources & Contributor Provenance (2 credited usernames · Thread #6162)
UsernameDossier ContributionDispatchesActive Window
@flackendPrimary Author22010-05-20 → 2010-05-21
@srs5694Contributor12010-05-20